strategy | No Smoke and Mirrors

Improve Sales Execution; The Power of One Thing

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Multitasking is a lie that far too many people believe to be true. Scientific data proves multitasking is not as effective as focusing on one thing at a time and completing it before moving on to the next task. This is particularly true for salespeople as we have the reputation of; chasing shinny objects. When salespeople develop the discipline of focusing on one thing and seeing it to a close they meet and exceed their sales goals. In this post I will share a great new book I have been reading; The One Thing, the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan.

As I have shared before sales execution is often a common problem in sales teams. Senior leadership did their 2-3 day strategy planning, came away with the plan and rolled it out to the team. However in most cases, CEO’s find themselves frustrated six months into a new sales year when sales results are not achieving plan and upon investigation they find what I refer to as the great disconnect…sales is not executing the plan. Why does this occur and what can be done to insure sales execute the plan and achieve their sales goals?

Focus

As the authors of the book; The One Thing share we achieve more when we go small. It takes great discipline to ignore all the things we could do and focus on the thing we should do. The authors share six lies that stand in the way of our success;

Everything matters equally
Multitasking
A disciplined life
Will power is always on Will call
A balanced life
Big is Bad

I highly recommend you buy and read this book. You will find yourself highlighting each page and writing notes in the margins.

Having lead sales and marketing teams for over 30 years as well as coaching salespeople, one common area salespeople must get over to achieve sales plan and hit their goals is the myth of multitasking. They believe busyness drives business… and this is simply not true. What does drive sales results is focusing on serving the customer. However when you ask a salesperson a simple question; what did you do yesterday?…you will often hear;

worked with frank in shipping to get my order out
I helped Joanie in customer service with…
I worked with engineering to quote the part #…
I did my call report from my last trip
I called and left messages with 6 current customers
I did some research on a guy I have been trying to sell for over a year
I worked with Lisa in accounting to get one of my accounts to pay their bill
I booked my travel plans for the meeting we are having in two weeks
I chased down the reasons why my order for …..did not ship on time as we promised
I worked with scheduling to try to move up the delivery on my order for …..
I did my expense report from the trip I did a month ago…
I entered some updates into the CRM
I sent email follow ups on order ship dates to some of my customers
I read an article in our industry trade journal about how a number of our customers are moving to …..

So what is a sales manager to do? where do you start?

I am a big fan of four legged sales calls. This is where you travel with your salespeople and meet with current customers, potential customers and often past customers you have lost and are trying to win back. One of the things I am also doing is determining how focused the salesperson is. Yogi Berra said ; you can learn a lot by observing… and what I often observe that is also occurring in a salesperson’s day they may not be aware of includes;

Multiple calls from their spouse or the person they are dating
a text from one of their children or friends
an email joke from a friend
junk emails with links to content salespeople read
LinkedIn updates on who visited their profile, who found a new job, and who may have endorsed them today
Facebook updates
Twitter updates
Maybe Google + updates
You tube videos they just have to watch
Good articles from industry trade journals sent to their email
Emails from customers needing help with quotes, order status updates, why an order did not ship
Reading blogs about how to improve their sales performance
Reading blogs and articles about their personal interests

* to make this even more of an interruption all of the above and more come through or cell phones.

You get the idea….salespeople today have a tremendous amount of distractions and can easily fall into the trap of believing being busy, having a great deal of activity , adds value. What adds value is bringing in and closing more profitable sales.

A great quote from the book; “ It’s not that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do, it’s that we feel we need to do too many tings in the time we have” – Gary Keller

What I really enjoyed about this book is how they blend in clinical research. Research shows workers are interrupted every 11 minutes and spend 30% of their day recovering from interruptions. We have an average of 4,000 thoughts a day flying in and out of our minds. We change a thought every 14 seconds so it’s easy to see how we fall into the trap of multitasking. But sales people who multitask get more done right? Wrong! Research shows;

the more complex the task you switch from when distracted the less likely you are to go back to it
chronic multi-tasker’s develop a distorted view of how long it takes to do things
workers who multitask make more mistakes
they have more stress
multitasking makes us slower witted

The book goes on to share more statistics and if you are like me will quickly agree we have been sold a lie with regards to multitasking.

How do we break this cycle of poor sales execution as a result of the multitask lie? The authors give us a grounding question to ask ourselves and our people each day;

What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or even unnecessary?

Let that question soak in, seep deep into the marrow of your bones….

What is the one thing your salespeople can do that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

What is the one thing you as the leader can do that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

What is your to-do list for today? How many to-dos do you have today?

How can you boil that list to one thing that you will do today that will have the most impact because you focus on it and see it to completion?

I highly recommend the book; The One Thing as at first it will help you, your team, and your ability to drive extraordinarily results. The hidden benefits will also arise as you apply its wisdom to your personal life….your health, your marriage, spiritual life, your relationship with your children and so on. This book, like Ctrl Alt Delete will be a resource tool in my library for years to come.

Increase Sales: Turn your “Sales Bucket” into a “Marketing and Sales Funnel” That Generates Revenue

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Steve Patrrizi new sales funnel — Steve Patrizi new sales funnel

In my last post I shared what CEO’s and business owners often share about sales: Why can’t it be more predictable, more systematic? The good news is it can. The unfortunate thing is most companies believe they have a marketing and sales funnel when in reality they have a sales bucket. A “sales bucket” is when all your opportunities, prospects and leads are all floating around together and many dying because you lack a process to help them buy. In a sales bucket opportunities that should become sales make a big splash when they enter your system but fail to leak out the bottom as a sale. In this post I will share how I have helped companies turn their sales buckets into revenue generating marketing and sales funnel generating revenue on a consistent and predictable basis.

When I hear a business leader say: What we need is a repeatable sales process. We need the sales guys to be more efficient at closing business and bringing in the revenue. What I hear them saying is : Why can’t my sales and marketing be more of a science and less of an art form? …it is too random, too unpredictable and it drives me nuts that I can’t count on the sales forecasts I am given.” These made me want to do some more research and answer the question: What is science?

At its very foundation science seeks to identify patterns. Through identifying and watching patterns, scientists uncover laws that are ultimately translated into math equations. These patterns follow one of two interwoven features; physical laws and environmental influences. With the common pattern of as high as 96% of leads going unsold…what is the pattern and what can we do to improve?

For companies who lack a marketing and sales funnel over the years the current market has only made this problem even worse. It used to be, back in the day, back when sales was the “keeper of the keys of product information” , marketing just had to dump prospects and leads into the top of the funnel and sales was responsible for pulling them through to a sale. The funnel and the function of the funnel changed as Steve Patrizi points out here. Today buyers are more informed and as much as 60%-80% of the buying process is over before they contact you. I read an article recently that shared the most important number in B2B marketing is 60%.

What does this figure mean for Marketing?

60% … This is no man’s land: a gap in the purchasing funnel that neither commercial function currently addresses.
The 60% mark is in that part of the mid-funnel that is critical in terms of driving the buyers’ consideration of a supplier for a potential purchase.
60% also means trying to build a dialogue with customers without having the advantage of a Sales rep’s one-on-one commercial interaction.
Finally, 60% means moving beyond the “qualified lead” mindset. In essence, once we have moved past the early stages of the funnel, we need a strategy for persuasion and attention-grabbing mechanisms.

Our job today becomes understanding how buyers buy, what common problems do they have, and turn our sales bucket into a slippery marketing and sales funnel that helps buyers buy. So how do we do that? What have I seen work? Below is the process I have used to help take the art out of sales and make it a much more predictable, forecast able, outcome.

Establish a common language – what does your team mean by a; Prospect, Inquiry, Opportunity, Lead?
Go into your market, ideally on four legged sales calls and clearly understand how your buyers buy and the criteria they need to make buying decisions.
Identify market truth’s
Map Buying journey
Create a marketing funnel that helps buyers buy
Stop the “sales insanity” and map a repeatable sales process that turns leads to sales
constantly sense and refine, adjust , be agile as your buyers change their processes change with them
Measure, measure, measure…
identify “the canary in your coal mine”, your lead to close %
Nurture your leads, improve your lead to close % by helping them slide through the funnel with what they need when they need it.

Do you have a sales bucket with opportunities that should become sales (leads you paid good money for already) dying?

Do you know why buyers buy from you and why they don’t?

What do your buyers need today to make buying decisions?

Do your sales people have the right sales tools to make the sales funnel slippery or is buying from you like sliding down a sliding board lined with sand paper and splinters?

Attention CEO’s and CFO’s; Do you have a “Sales and Marketing Funnel” or Bucket? …the answer may surprise you, take a short quiz and know for sure

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do you have a marketing and sales funnel or a leaking sales bucket?

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could have our sales and marketing run like our plant? We could have key indicators, a proven methodology, and process with predictable results…”I hear business owners and leaders say this to me often once they relax and truly share their thoughts and concerns. Far too often CEO’s and CFO’s think/hope their marketing and sales teams have a defined process that is efficient and effective to drive predictable results. Unfortunately, if you really understand and look at leading indicators what they think is a marketing and sales funnel is actually a sales bucket. In this post I will share how to determine if your team has a marketing and sales funnel or a sales bucket that leaks an occasional sale or two.

I was asked by the chairman of the board of a company to have lunch. He heard through his venture capital and private equity network what I do, and he was warned early on my approach is a bit different. I enjoy meeting new people and business problems are drawn to me. I enjoy learning new things, facing new challenges and each meeting like this one always teaches me something. Once we made it through the pleasantries it was not too long for me to hear his concerns;

Why can’t sales and marketing be like my manufacturing plant? Predictable, scalable, and provide me sales forecasts I can count on?

It drives me nuts to know we are spending so much money on marketing and I do not see an immediate and often long term return on that investment, but I am afraid to stop making it in case it would hurt the performance we are seeing.

What we need is a repeatable sales process. We need the sales guys to be more efficient at closing business and bringing in the revenue.

Based on our moderate to poor sales results over the last few years, do I have the right salespeople or should I be looking for new ones?

I feel like the CEO / President is asking for more money each year for marketing, but I am not seeing a corresponding increase in sales…why?

We seem to have high turnover in sales, we lost some good sales people and this has to be expensive and hurting our results.

About the time we finished eating he said; “what do you think? Is this something you can help with, can you fix sales problems like this?”

I have and often do “fix sales problems.” However more often than not what CEO’s and business owners want to hear on how to fix sales problems is not the way they anticipate. In most cases they think they have a repeatable sales process, but they don’t.

They think they have a marketing funnel that is dumping primed and ready leads to their salespeople and their sales people have a proven way to close them quickly. They think they need more sales training. They think they need to better motivate their sales people to perform. No, no, no and in most cases no again.

What I have observed in most cases is leaders, particularly those not from marketing and sales believe they have a marketing and sales funnel, but in reality they have a bucket, with an every so small hole in the bottom that occasionally leaks a sale or two. Left unchecked this marketing and sales bucket becomes a Chinese water torture to your senior leadership team as they try to explain and predict future revenues and ROI with owners and investors. As one thought leader just shared, what they think is a funnel of live and vibrant leads and opportunities is actually pipeline stench. The pipelines may look full and make you feel good in senior management meetings Monday mornings…but are actually full of dead and rotting opportunities polluting your entire marketing and sales process.

Do you have a Marketing and Sales Funnel or Bucket?

What is your lead to close %? Do you know it?
Do you have defined stages in the marketing and sales pipeline? What are they?
Can you share the # in each phase?
If I met with your latest new salesperson, could they share your repeatable sales process with me?
Does sales and marketing have an understood definition of the terms; opportunity, prospect, lead?
Can you tell me the average time a new person you engage with spends in your process until they buy or die?
Can you share the qualifying questions you use?
Do you have the top three buyer personas identified and have you mapped out their buying journey?
Have you added new sales tools in the last 6-12 months?
Does your web site speak in the tone of the problems you solve?

If the answers I receive to the above have three or more “no’s” you have Marketing and Sales Bucket not a funnel.

How about your company?

Do you have a “Marketing Funnel”, “Sales Funnel” a “Repeatable Sales process”?….are you sure? (you need to be)

What other questions could we ask to determine if you have a funnel of vibrant buyers anxious to buy and solve their problems, or a bunch of rotting dead leads just polluting your management process?

In the market of today there is no excuse to not have marketing and sales funnel that is a systematic process driven tool to maximize your team’s effectiveness and do so in the most efficient way.

So did this post make you nervous, anxious, and maybe a bit angry? As your team for the answers to the above that I use to diagnose teams I serve, and you will quickly understand your internal truths. Once you do, you are well on your way to driving a process that gets results. In my next post I will share some techniques I have used to turn marketing and sales buckets into funnels.

What You should Do If You Report to a “Post Turtle Sales Manager” ?

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In my last few posts about different types of buyers and how to sell them, I shared advice about how to sell a “Post Turtle Buyer”. I had planned to keep sharing different buyer types I have worked with over the years. What surprised me were the emails and calls I received asking; what should I do if I report to a “post turtle sales manager”? The reason I started blogging was to share advice in hopes it helps and serves others. If you report to a “post turtle sales manager” this post is for you.

First we need to make sure we are talking about the right challenging sales manager. A “post turtle sales manager” is one that was placed in this role and does not know what to do there. Someone else put them there and they did not climb up there, earn this position on their own. When I spent some time researching why sales super stars leave, I found one of the leading reasons was their boss; their sales manager. However most of those interviews were about what I referred to some time ago as the “Ass Kicker”. The Ass Kicker is a jerk basically who subscribes to; the beatings will continue until the moral improves weekly. When something goes wrong, sales are not met they quickly look for an ass to kick or a throat to choke. They lack the emotional intelligence to manage themselves let alone a team of people. They often lead with fear and intimidation and if you are struggling with this type of sales manager I have some advice for you here.

A Post Turtle Sales Manager is different. They may have been a salesperson promoted. After all since they were so strong at selling they would be an awesome sales manager right?… WRONG. Managing and leading people requires an entirely bigger skill set than how to sell products effectively.

I have seen Post Turtle Managers also emerge from the owner’s rolodex of “smart” people and or relatives.

Just because you are smart is does not insure your success leading a sales team.

Just because you may have the same DNA flowing through your veins as the owner, it does not mean you have the training, experience and gifts to lead a sales team.

What should you do if you now have a post turtle sales manager?

Make a decision – do you want to work for them? You now understand who and what they are and are you willing to sign up for this deal? If the answer is no, and it often is with sales super stars, start making your plan to exit now.
Assuming you chose to stay, first identify how they will be judged.
Help them achieve their objectives.
Ask them to go on some four legged sales calls.
lead up; you do not have to have a title to have influence
Find them a raving fan account contact they can bounce ideas off of and learn about current market problems common in your business.
Find them a Mentor, someone in your organization or someone in a similar role serving your industry but obviously not a competing company.
Find them an industry association group to join, participate in.
Help them find a local leaders organization like Vistage.
Encourage them to subscribe to content, like my blog here at www.nosmokeandmirrors.com

Other sales and sales leadership content I would highly recommend includes;

Selling Power: http://salesleadershipblog.sellingpower.com/

Sales Benchmark Index: http://www.salesbenchmarkindex.com/bid/97712/Why-Slow-Sales-Leaders-Won-t-Survive

Top Sales World: http://topsalesworld.com/topsalesmanagement/

Insight Squared: http://www.insightsquared.com/2013/05/sales-leadership-vs-sales-management/

Salesforce Blog: http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/

Revenue Journal: http://www.revenuejournal.com/

Content specific to leadership would include;

Management Excellence: http://artpetty.com/blog/

Chris Brogan: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

How to change the world: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/

Tom Peters: http://www.tompeters.com/

Leadership Wired: http://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/

Brian Tracy’s Blog: http://www.briantracy.com/blog/

Leadership Now: http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/

Some you tubes they could watch include:

You don’t have to go it alone; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL03rvRxnys

This week in sales: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVpAu4jvvb8

Connie Podesta: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLhuFKCiX0A

A couple of great books;

Profit from the Core

New Rules Marketing and PR

Ctrl Alt Delete

Coaching Salespeople into Champions

First 90 Days

Your Brain at Work

If you now report to a Post Turtle Sales Manager you can moan, complain and participate in all those non value adding negative conversations with your peers,…or be a part of the solution. Offer to help your sales manager learn how to become successful and who knows you may find they are the perfect boss…and become a lifelong friend as well.

Have you worked for a post turtle sales manager?

What Advice would you give to others?

Dispel 5 Myths about Fixing Sales Today and Insure Strong Future Sales

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Over the last few weeks I have been discussing common myths business owners and leaders believe to be true about the fixing sales problems and how to immunize future sales performance. I recently went for my annual flu shot and the myths people in line were discussing as truths reminded me of the five main myths sales leaders need to lose to fix poor sales performance and how we can immunize future sales results. Before I can help you fix your sales problems we need to dispel the 5 myths that you may be carrying as market truths;

You cannot Train your way out of a sales problems alone.

You cannot Manage your way to improved sales alone.

The Economy is not the only reason for your poor sales performance alone.

Hiring outside help to work on your Sales Process will not hurt your current sales.

Just because you have Good Sales Now does not immunize you from future poor sales results.

What is the best way to immunize your sales performance from poor results?

Clean Sales Management

Clean Sales Management as I shared in a previous post entails being in your market on four legged sales calls with your sales team. As a reminder, you are not there to close sales but to observe buyers.

You need to answer;

Why do buyers buy from you and why don’t they?

What is their buyer journey today?

What sales process is your team using? (… if any)

What are common buyer personas your team is presenting?

What criteria are important to your buyers today?

When your buyers shop for a solution, where do they go, what process do they use?

Are there any “Spin Cycles” in your current sales process that no longer mirror how your buyers are buying today? (Spin cycle- those places in the sales process where the sale stalls, spins, or even goes dark)

What tools could your salespeople use to overcome or eliminate buyer Spin Cycles?

As a sales manager, and more so if you are the VP of Sales you have a number of activities all vying for your time and attention. Having been a VP of Sales and Marketing myself I experienced the following all pulling me like they had a gravitational power of their own;

Your CEO and President want answers to specific questions

Hitting your new sales goals

Hitting your profit objectives

Controlling expenses

IT wants to book SAP training and your opinion on what a CRM should do

A/R wants help collecting from difficult customers

Marketing wants your sales guys to ask their buyers …. (you fill in the blanks)

Forecasting

Cost of Quality meetings

Meeting with the CFO forecasting ROI and sales forecast for new products

HR wanting to have succession plans in place, quarterly performance reviews, performance improvement plans, and on-boarding discussions

Product Development wanting to know why we are not hitting new product sales

Meetings with Product Engineering discussing problems with their last new design

Product Marketing wanting to meet about why sales is not closing a higher % of leads

Social Media group wanting stories from the field

More meetings you did not even know were on the list

…do I need to keep typing or do you agree I have lived this?

If you try to do all of the above you can quickly become an “an office bound VP of sales” and this is the beginning of the death of a sales VP. The reality is you (we) need to do all of the above and more. However what keeps us employed, hitting our bonus objectives and answering the top four activities above; answering President and CEO questions strategically and timely, hitting sales goals, achieving profit objectives and controlling expenses…you need to be in the market practicing clean sales management. In your market you become aware of market changes, viruses, which can infect your sales results early and keep your team’s sales performance on plan.

Improve Sales; Hiring Outside Help To Work On Your Sales Process Will Not Make Your Sales Results Worse

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The first quarter of each new year often starts out as a struggle for sales teams to achieve their new goals. Your sales team has received a new and bigger goal, (there’s a high probability they missed last year’s goal) and now your team’s sales performance is poor or put another way; it is sick. When you ask business leaders why they will not hire someone to help improve sales performance and immunize their team from future performance issues we often hear a fear that the market work will actually hurt sales and cause sales results to get sicker.

Assuming your team’s poor sales performance to goal will get worse by hiring an outsider to help your team is like believing if you get a flu shot, you will catch the flu….it is simply not true.

As I shared in a previous post it is not just a sales training problem, a sales management problem, or a poor economy alone. It is often so much more. Before we can clearly diagnose why your sales team is experiencing poor sales performance we need to identify a squash myths your team may believe.

I was in the line at Walgreens to receive my annual flu shot and I could not help but listen as people in line shared myths that they believed to be true about the flu and the flu shot it’s self. This reminded me of the myths I have heard over the years about poor sales performance and I wanted to dispel some of the reasons people use to rationalize poor sales performance. One that always amazes is me is leaders who chose to go it alone and actually believe working on their sales process will somehow hurt their sales.

Hiring an outsider who conducts win loss analysis will add a tremendous amount of value quickly. They will interview current customers, past customers and buyers in your market you have always wanted to sell. Their mission, if they are good is to identify the buying process, buyer journey and buying criteria your buyers are using today. They will compare how buyers are buying and want to buy to your current sales process and identify what I call “spin cycles”. Spin cycles in the current sales process are places the sales stalls and basically spins instead of proceeding to the next step. Spin cycles are resolved by adding needed sales tools and or adjusting your current sales process steps.

If your team fails to stay current with how buyers are buying in your market your team risks contracting a disconnected market virus. The longer the virus runs in course through your team the more difficult it will be to cure. There are no quick pills, quick fixes, and without senior management support to cure this condition it can become terminal.

There is only one situation where conducting market win loss work can and often does hurt your sales is when you interview a buyer currently in the sales process. Buyers in the current sales process must not be interviewed until the sale is closed or lost.

How about your team….

Have you noticed an increase in price discounting over the last three months?

Has your sales close % decreased in the last 30 days?

Are 60% or more of your sales team missing sales plan goals?

Have you lost a key account (or two) in the last 120 days?

The above are some of the symptoms your sales and specifically your sales process are sick and your team has a disconnected market virus. There are no quick fixes for viruses but the best defense is a strong offence. A flu shot will expose your body to a very small sample of the flu and allow your body to build your immunities over time. Staying current with how your buyers are buying and the buying criteria they are using to make buying decisions is the best way to immunize your sales from experiencing poor sales results.

I would be remiss if I did not warn you that win loss analysis and working on your sales process will likely have some side affects;

challenge assumptions your senior leaders believed to be true and they will become uncomfortable
expose disconnected and dated processes
can cause some emotional upset when you learn lost sales were not based on price
may give your marketing team heartburn when you find 80% of the buying process is done before buyers call you and your current web site is invisible
may make you feel ill when you learn how your salespeople believe their main responsibility is to protect the fort and not help buyers buy

The side affect will pass overtime and your team will quickly become stronger and your sales results healthier as you adjust your sales process and introduce new sales tools to help your buyers buy.

Assemble a 21st Century Sales Pipeline

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By guest blogger Dave Barnhart

Have you ever said, “If I’d known that before I bought, I would have chosen that one instead of this one.” ? That is Criteria Evolution at work.

There has been paradigm shifts in the way people ask questions, get answers, and make buying decisions. One of the casualties in that shift is the pre-sales conversation has been foreshortened. As a result, buyers are sometimes missing crucial facts that would otherwise cause them to make the buying decision in our favor instead of our competitor’s.

Case to point: The number one complaint by kitchen remodeling customers is the dust and trash created by the contractor, yet most customers are blissfully ignorant of this when they make their buying decision. A smart contractor would:

Institute procedures such as the use of an air scrubber to eliminate the problem.
Engage in a proactive campaign to make prospective customers aware of the problem and how you solve it.

Now imagine your prospect learned this information from your website, an article online you’ve written, or from a strategically placed testimonial. While your prospect is talking to contractors on his short list, what happens when she asks your competitor, “Do you use an air scrubber?” You’ve just eliminated a competitor who cannot answer ‘yes’, and done so with no additional incremental effort on your part.

There is only one way this happens:

You must view your website, collateral, and all of those online articles and discussions as part of your company’s sales team, each with a role to play.

Start by putting your successful sales under a microscope. Become intimately familiar with the journey your customers take from complete stranger to paying customer. What do they want to know? What resources are they using to educate themselves? How to they find you? What are their buying criteria? Who else is involved in the buying decision?

The Truth Will Set You Free But First It Will Make You Miserable

Expect to learn that some of the time, energy, and money you’ve been spending on sales and marketing are being wasted. Expect to discover you are losing sales in ways that never occurred to you. And expect to find things that are working.

With this information at hand you can begin to assemble a 21^st century sales pipeline – one that is tuned in to your customers’ buying process and actually helps them buy.

This post was provided by Dave Barnhart of Klaroty Strategic Marketing.
Klaroty Strategic Marketing is a marketing firm focused on web development, website design, social media, and marketing strategy. We are based in Phoenix, Arizona with clients throughout the US and Europe. Dave’s firm actually designed my No Smoke and Mirrors blog and I have sent many clients who wish to have a 21^st century web site that adds sales to Dave. Dave’s popular blog http://blog.businessbloggingpros.com/ helps business leaders learn how to engage with buyers in their market earlier in the buying process.

Is Your Web Site Adding New Sales or Just a Virtual Brochure Taking Up Cyber Space?

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its hard to grow the sales of invisible products on the web

Lets all agree that buyers are buying differently today than they did 10 years ago. I think most of us will agree buyers are buying different than they did 5 years ago. If you are out doing win loss interviews you will also find buyers are buying differently today than they did last year. With 70% -80% of the buying process completed by the time buyers speak with a salesperson we must adapt. In my last post: Invisible Products; The death of your new Sales Goal I shared how buyers today are doing online research and market leaders understand this behavior and strategically place content to help buyers shape their perceived ideal solution. Market losers keep cold calling and missing their sales goals. One way to fix your sales problems is to insure your web site is an active tool in helping you drive sales.

After my last post I received one of three responses;

Sales people; what are you saying; we don’t play as key a role in sales anymore? (I thought you were one of us?

I am a sales guy at heart, I have lead sales teams for 25 years but I have been forced to learn about how buyers buy and how critical market driven marketing is to achieving my sales numbers by helping my potential buyers buy. Sorry, but you are no longer the keeper of the feature and benefit keys.

Sales leaders; I have a web site but sales in my business occur belly to belly with buyers…

Yes you could say that, but you would be wrong. Your buyers are now using the web early in the sales process and if you really want to crush that new sales goal, you must have a strong presence on the web to get invited to the dance.

Business leaders and owners: your post made me feel uncomfortable, if you are right how do I know if my web site is a tool to grow my business or a virtual brochure that looks pretty but is not adding any value to my bottom line?

I am not a web SEO expert but I will share the tests I do when helping a client determine if their web site is a sales tool or just taking up cyber space.

Does your web site produce inquiries from prospective buyers? If so how many and is it enough to achieve your sales goals? If your answer is; yes we have more than enough leads that are turning into a record breaking sales year…, quit reading and get back to following up on those sales leads!
Conduct a Google search for your products, your business. If you serve a particular region add that region. For example; “ ____(products and or services) in Grand Rapids Michigan” If your products and business is on the first page of the search give yourself a score of 10 points, if not give yourself a 0. If your product and business are in the top three listings give yourself another 5 points and if you have a pay per click add that is also on the page give yourself 5 more points.
Conduct the same process with Yahoo and BING. Score your results the same as above.
What is your web sites bounce rate? The administrator of your web site can tell you this number quickly. A bounce rate is basically what % of visitors to your site found your site but bounced; they do not open a second page. If your bounce rate is under 60% give your score another 5 points.
Does your website have content developed with SEO in mind? In other words content, stories that include key words your buyers use when searching for a solution to a problem they are having. If yes, give yourself 5 points.
Does your web site have a blog? Add another 10 points.
Does your web site have links to other thought leaders in your industry, supplier’s sites, complimentary products, and industry trade associations? If yes give yourself another 10 points for each link.
Does your site have a Face book, twitter, LinkedIn , and you tube links? Give yourself 5 points for each link you have.
Open your web site on a smart phone. If you can read your site and find products one of your buyers may be looking for give yourself 10 points.
Do you have a pay per click (PPC Ads) strategy to complement your organic search efforts? If yes add 20 points.

So how did your web site score in its ability to drive sales for your business?

150- 200 points – you have a good site and it is a tool to help your salespeople hit their

sales goals

100-149 points – you have a good site with a strong foundation you need to build upon

70-99 points – you have a web site but it is not driving the leads and ultimate sales it

could be

Under 70 points – your products and services are invisible to the buyers in your market

In today’s market buyers are searching for solutions to problems they are trying to solve using the web. Yes you and your team can still cold call buyers and possibly work harder to hit your numbers. However why not work smarter and help your products and services be found when buyers are searching? What would you rather have….a cold call with someone who might need your product?… or a conversation with a buyer searching for a product like yours to solve an urgent problem they have?

Market leaders understand how their buyers buy and insure their web sites are tools to help buyers buy.

The above is how I quickly do a gut check to see if a client’s products and services are invisible. Do you have other ways to check the effectiveness of a web site?

Stop Making Your Salespeople “Assume The Position” …

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By Mark Allen Roberts

In my last few posts have been about how buyers become “Brand Damaged” and this preventable disease will quickly eat away at any chances your team thought they had of achieving their sales goals. It is very difficult to heal damaged brands. Another marketing disease that frequents particularly large companies occurs when sales has to : Assume the Position of your product or service when presenting buyers. If your salespeople do not clearly understand your product positioning they are left to be pat down by buyers . Sales then assumes what it must represent to make this uncomfortable experience end,and the result is very dangerous. It is dangerous because you fail to close sales you probability could have won and your sales team is promising things you can not execute.

I can hear some of you now, “ok, you have discussed branding and positioning in the last two posts, enough already!” My answer is no, I have shared branding and how your brand can become a damaged brand in the minds of your buyers. In this post I will discuss how far too many companies force their salespeople to ; Assume the Position their product or service has in the minds of their buyers and this results in lost sales that could have been yours.

Let’s go over a couple quick definitions;

Brand– Unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product and differentiates it from its competitors. Over time, this image becomes associated with a level of credibility, quality, and satisfaction in the consumer’s mind (see positioning). Thus brands help harried consumers in crowded and complex marketplace, by standing for certain benefitsand value. Legal name for a brand is trademark and, when it identifies or represents a firm, it is called a brand name. See also corporate identity.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/brand.html#ixzz26NttsbS1

Position, Positioning, Positioning Statement – Written description of the objectives of a positioning strategy. It states (1) how the firm defines its business or how a brand distinguishes itself, (2) how the customers will benefit from its features, and (3) how these benefits or aspects will be communicated to the intended audience.A positioning statement is a subset of a value proposition that optimizes it for marketing communications purposes. It identifies the target audience, the product and its category, a specific benefit, and is differentiable from the nearest competitive alternative. It is an internal, non-emotional statement that becomes the messaging cornerstone of an integrated marketing campaign.

Read More : http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/positioning.html

You can control your “positioning” by creating a unique selling proposition and using it in all your marketing communication. Over time, as people become aware of your products and services, you start building your brand in your prospects’ and customers’ minds. Positioning is something you can do now when you state the problems you solve and how you uniquely solve them. Branding happens over time. Branding refers to what your customers think or feel when they hear a specific word. Positioning refers to your position “relative to” or “in comparison to” your competitors. Positioning is sharing your distinctive competence with your market. Branding is your product’s identity established over consistently executing what you promised.

With that said…

Are your salespeople trained and aware of your product positioning? …are you sure?

When your salespeople meet with new prospects do they know your product’s distinctive competence?

Is your brand and position true in the minds of your buyers?

Are some of your products; “positioning dated”?

Are your salespeople “assuming” they know what your product position statement is or sharing a dated position that worked five years ago?

Is it time to re-position your product(s) based on the market conditions and problems your buyers face today?

Salespeople are focused on closing new business and if you do not provide your product positioning that resonates with buyers, sales will assume and make their own tools to drive the sale to a close. The trouble is, from a buyer’s perspective, it feels very uncomfortable as they have to pat down salespeople to find products that may solve their problems. For a buyer it feels like the salesperson is playing feature and benefit BINGO. They keep tossing features and benefits expecting the buyer to yell; “BINGO …I get it now, I know what problem you can solve for me.” The more this salesperson is left to find your product’s position the less credible they becomes in the mind of your buyer. The more salespeople you have on your team creating your positioning, trying to sell dated positioning, your market will lose trust in your company.

Don’t make your salespeople Assume the position when meeting with buyers.

Train your salespeople to seek unresolved market problems and understand your product’s position to solve those problems. The goal of positioning is when your target market associates a benefit with your company. When you fail to establish a strong foundation from a position that resonates with your buyers, you fail to create brands that create raving fans.

So hopefully you can see now that when salespeople are forced to Assume the Position of your product or service it creates an unstable foundation for a trust based relationship and is it any wonder buyers become brand damaged? A strong position in the mind of the buyer, reinforced over time connects to the buyers’ emotion and they begin to trust. It is at that point your positioning becomes a brand.

When salespeople are forced to assume the position of your product ;they make an ass out of you and your company.

How Do We Heal “Brand Damaged Buyers” and Get Them Buying Again?

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By Mark Allen Roberts

If you provide a product or a service you are going to experience buyers who have a bad overall buying experience at some time. Market leaders will take this opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade and actually improve their relationship with their customer. Market losers will play the blame storm game, refuse to take ownership, repeat the mistakes over and over again and ultimately cause buyers to suffer Brand Damage and stop buying all together. Once an account is lost it is very difficult to win their trust back, however it is not impossible. Once a market hears enough negative feedback from a variety of sources the market can become brand damaged.In this post I will share;

How Do We Heal “Brand Damaged Buyers” and Get Them Buying Again?

What is the best way not to break your buyer’s trust and lose future business? Well I see it proudly displayed in factories, lobbies and desk tops across the clients I served;

“Do what you said you would do”

Why do I like this simple no smoke and mirrors approach phrase so much?

I have seen it work time and time again
Market leaders all live by this rule
It is time tested
It’s biblical
It establishes trust and reinforces it every time you execute

However the reality is we all make mistakes. How do we rebound from those mistakes? Can we ever rebound from those mistakes? I recently read a great article: America’s Nine Most Damaged Brands. This article shares how; the true causes of drops in brand value are folly and arrogance. 24/7 Wall St.’s review of nine brands that were badly damaged recently shows that even the most powerful brand cannot survive horrible decisions. So an element of hubris plays a part in brand damaged markets.

My own personal experience has shown mistakes only become Brand Damaged Buyers when we refuse to admit we made them or correct them. Let’s face itwe all need to be tuned into our market and listen for unresolved problems, …even if we find we caused a few of them.

So let’s say you have been experiencing some of the symptoms I discussed in my last post of companies that have brand damaged buyers like:

Sales failing to meet plan objectives

Competitors sales growing

Decrease in market share

Profit decrease due to field discounting

Customers you have lost refusing to meet with you

You are losing large key accounts who have

…as well as others.

Let’s say you have decided you need to “Heal Brand Damaged Buyers” so they start buying from you again, where do we start?

First we need to go back to the fundamentals of building a brand customers can trust, we start executing the 10 Commandments of Marketing as discussed by Derrick Daye. We need to clearly understand positioning and our desired intentional differentiation in the perceptions of our buyers. A lot of companies struggle in this area so I suggest you down load one of my friends and mentor’s books: Your Brands Position by Dick Maggiore. You can download a copy of my book: Branding Backwards that shares how we need to intentionally brand our product or service or the market will and we will be branding by default. You can visit the article ; 3 ways to build brand loyalty and start from scratch again. Last, make sure and watch Jack Trout’s “5 tests of obviousness.” Jack Trout goes on to share how we must never waste a crisis but use it to make tough changes that often results in re-positioning.

So you’ve done your homework, you feel pretty good about what you’ve seen and you want to experience the benefits of market leading companies like; sales growth faster than industry average , gross profits over 30% higher than the completion, and increased customer satisfaction and loyalty? Where do you start? Ask a simple question in everything you do:

Is it true?

I went and heard an amazing author, speaker, thought leader named Byron Katie speak and the foundation of her work is the simple question: Is it true? Her content was so simple yet so brilliant I sat for hours after the conference with my mind racing as to all the applications in the business world.

So let me ask you: Is it true?

Everything you say on your web site?

What your salespeople are trained to present about your product or service?

All your marketing literature?

What your salespeople say about your competition

Printed content on your product packaging and owners manuals?

What your marketing team believes are the problems your product or service solves?

What your mission statement and vision statement say?

Do you have a “passion statement” and are you walking the talk?

Everything your team is saying at sales meetings, strategy meetings?

Was the product you launched on time last week ready to be launched

Next you must start rebuilding trust with your buyers and one way to do so is admit your past mistakes and apologize and let the buyer know their relationship with you is important and you want to win back their trust. Ask your buyer how he or she would do that if the roles were reversed. (Their answers may surprise you)

Last you must build trust in all the small things;

Follow up when you say you will follow up

Under commit and over deliver

Arrive on time

Keep meetings to buyer approved time window

Follow up meetings with email that reviews they key points of your meeting

Launch new products when they are ready and tested

When we break the trust our buyers have placed in us we create Brand Damaged Buyers. If an error or an over promised feature and benefit go unresolved too long, we loose a buyer’s trust. If your team has been experiencing some of the above symptoms of brand damaged buyers it will be a very difficult path winning buyer trust back to where it once was. Trust is emotional and that is why it is so much easier to not violate it in the beginning of the relationship and so hard to repair later.

Have some of your products broken trust with your buyers?

Have any new products failed to perform to what you promised in sales presentations and your web site?

Are your sales people making promises right now ( as you are reading this) to close a sale, that are not true?

Have you discovered any other steps to rebuild trust and help heal brand damaged buyers?

As I shared, you need laser like positioning in the market today and as you consistently deliver on what you promise you build a brand. If you fail to deliver you are also branding and you create what I call brand damaged buyers. If you find yourself with brand damaged buyers you are not alone. The key is to clearly understand the market’s perceptions of what you offer today and if needed re-position your offering based on your buyers ,market and competitors today. The first step is being humble enough to listen to your market and stop assuming your positioning is relevant and resonates with buyers today.